


Numinous

by meowsbian



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, And more characters to come that I will tag as and when they pop up!, Beau is trans, Does that fit even if the canon setting is heavily fantastical?, F/F, Languages are fucked (I’m deep in on that worldbuilding), Let me know if I’m missing any tags from a glance over?, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-05-18 13:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19335628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowsbian/pseuds/meowsbian
Summary: Beauregard is a wizard. She’s got robes that aren’t nearly as gaudy as some of the wizards she knows, get some class, Mollymauk, you look like something bright and composed wholly of sequins threw up all over you, with no glitter or gold embroider or atrocious hats. She has a staff. She has magic. Those three are the essentials, really.Jester is a witch. Jester’s plants are verdant and healthy and strong because her herb garden is a microcosm of natural selection, whereby Jester is the selector and the whole process is hurried along by a scale factor of a few million.Fjord is a warlock. He thinks maybe he’s going to save up enough for passage on another ship, and it’s a good plan. Clear goals, clear methods, everything nice and simple. Sailors are a superstitious bunch, and Fjord’s a despairing exception and a skeptic.





	1. Introduction: i

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily heavily inspired by pratchett’s witches and wizards and really I’m just having fun with this. Excuse the English dialogue, I don’t know how non-English people talk. Update schedule: currently nonexistent.

Beauregard is a wizard, and it’s only through a stupid technicality, really, the argument of intent and tradition and the fact that she was meant to be a boy, had been called a boy, to her persistent irritance until she’d decided that was enough, all accompanied by her steeliest gaze yet, a gaze with enough carbon in it to break diamonds, a gaze to be fucking proud of. Nobody can object to Beau if she looks that them with her gaze just so, not if they have enough sense about them to care about their organs. Or, if that fails, enough sense to know what pain feels like. 

Besides, she already has her own staff. No sharp impractical crystals or ugly tree roots that she can at least appreciate would hurt if jabbed with the right way, but she does have straps so she doesn’t have to go around with it in her hand all the time, and do a complicated series of juggling manoeuvres every time she wants to hold something with both hands. 

She’s got robes that aren’t nearly as gaudy as some of the wizards she knows, get some class, Mollymauk, you look like something bright and composed wholly of sequins threw up all over you, with no glitter or gold embroider or atrocious hats. She has a staff. She has magic. Those three are the essentials, really. 

Although. Spellcasting is another thing entirely and needs enough stock to buy out an alchemist’s shop just for a simple spell, she thinks, but to be a wizard, you don’t really have to cast any spells. Just looking like you know how to is good enough, and the easiest way to give that impression is by knowing and being so pissed off by the hassle of finding components and time that one doesn’t just because of it. Which is very, very lucky for Beau, because she doesn’t even have to pretend to give off that impression. She’s also smart enough to know it’s a lot easier to deck someone in the face than to weave her hands around just so to light up their face with a flurry of fire.


	2. Introduction: ii

Jester is a witch. Jester thinks, the chirrupy voice in her head taut like a songbird after a rough family dinner where the songbird’s family were being pieces of shit over the intricacies of polite society, sharp and cutting in a way only as impressive as she wants it to be, bugger this for a laugh. 

That’s a lie. It would be as sharp as she wants it if she spoke it aloud, but in the confines of her head she lets it have all the gravitas she could ever possibly need. It’s cathartic and makes her smile curve into a thin, satisfied line, and if the plants in front of her could shiver that’s what they’d be doing. Jester’s nowhere near as good a gardener as Caduceus, or even Caleb, because he’s just adamant about divination being wizards’ tricks and gives a very good go at everything else. So Caduceus’ herb garden knows his patience, and the promise of sunlight and water, and Caleb’s knows his careful eye looking for leaf spots, a tiny precise pair of shears sharpened like paper at the edge. And Jester’s knows fear. She’s not going to go around scrabbling in the dirt without a very good reason to, and while she has plenty on a good day, getting parsley to grow really shouldn’t be one. 

So, it does that all on her own, and Jester beams, and the careful walk she takes back to her cottage could be called a skip if she wasn’t a witch, because witches don’t skip anywhere. Jester’s plants are verdant and healthy and strong because her herb garden is a microcosm of natural selection, whereby Jester is the selector and the whole process is hurried along by a scale factor of a few million.


	3. Introduction: iii

Fjord is a warlock. Well— Fjord is a man who does not know what he is (vaguely irritated, most of the time). He knows he’s alive, if the beating in his chest is anything to go by, though he doesn’t know it’s his heart doing all that hard work (in the same way that most people can’t find their arses with both hands and a bullshit detector, or the way most people would tell one to kindly fuck off if they were quizzed on a Saturday morning about the location and properties of their spleen. Not the way in which one might, for instance, think their organs have shifted after a rough day at sea. Which, coincidentally, they do for Fjord). But that’s about where it ends. 

He doesn’t know it, but what he is, is a warlock, and it’s why he’s all of a sudden far more accustomed to breathing water in, instead of the far more conventional air. He still works on the docks, hesitant to go out to sea after the way he could have sworn he nearly drowned, but something tugs at him to stick around, and it’s… hey, he’s fine with it. He’s done weirder, and it’s not like he wasn’t going to stick around the docks anyway, even with one fewer ship than he’d like, for a grand total of zero. He thinks maybe he’s going to save up enough for passage on another ship, and it’s a good plan. Clear goals, clear methods, everything nice and simple. 

Then he wakes up and his eyes are a different colour. Frustratingly it takes him a couple days to notice, catching the reflection in his ale, and it’s one of the rare occasions he’s almost upset that he doesn’t drink enough to have noticed sooner. But it slowly slots into place, and, yeah, that’s why he’s been having a little more trouble securing passage than before. Sailors are a superstitious bunch, and Fjord’s a despairing exception and a skeptic. It takes an impressive degree of doublethink that only he can pull off, even if tension is building mentally like something’s going to snap if he doesn’t actually process any of it soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyy so chapter length is going to jump alarmingly by a factor of three or so but! This is just some fun preliminaries while I worked out the characterisations I’m going for here. Next chapter will be up when I learn how to conclude a scene.


	4. Act i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m… sorry,” she forces, like it’s physically painful. “Irresponsible of me to be out of sea salt and antimony, or whatever I’d need for that, but,” her face brightens, “your coat has a lot of pockets. You wouldn’t…?” 
> 
> He nods, reaches into a likely enchantedly deep pocket, and procures a slim, yet heavy-looking key, bronze from how it caught the light. He opens the door of the building they’re nearly squashed against in the winding streets, and gives a quiet sigh not quite befitting how he’s been inconvenienced. “Hallo, I am Caleb Widogast. Come inside, I can make tea. Why were you running? Don’t answer that.”

Beau’s running like there’s something in it for her, and it’s kind of the reverse with how Dairon just yelled at her. She hops down from a row of shingles quickly approaching a steeple, wraps her coat inside out leaving a bump where her staff’s now covered, and it’s all kinds of uncomfortable, and— 

She can’t pay attention to that because she’s just barrelled into something tall and lanky and overflowing with nervous energy enough to be intimidating. The sheer confusion knocks her off kilter like a punch to the chest, and all of her life’s experience doesn’t make for good apologies. 

Especially not when there’s a moment’s silence before, through environmental storytelling from the blur she sees and the aftermath she sees Beau figures is a jar, slides out of that something’s grip and onto the ground, and a volume of red plasma she’s in no way expecting sloshes with it. 

There’s a string of curses in what she thinks is upwards of four languages before the figure in front of her (which she identifies as a ginger, bearded, scruffy wizard) settles on the Common Tongue for an impressively emphatic “fuck,”.

This is at the precise moment that Beau stammers out a “Shit! Fuck! You’ve got a lot of blood in you!”

“Was zum Teufel? Was— what?”

“What?”

The man looks down. Beau looks down. 

It looks like it was previously a jam jar. A jar that previously contained jam. Jam that was currently splashed across the floor. 

The man looks up. Beau looks back up. He’s lanky, underfed, pale like the sun avoids him and yet freckles spatter his face and what she can see of his hands and fingers uncountable. 

“I’m… sorry,” she forces, like it’s physically painful. “Irresponsible of me to be out of sea salt and antimony, or whatever I’d need for that, but,” her face brightens, “your coat has a lot of pockets. You wouldn’t…?” 

He nods, reaches into a likely enchantedly deep pocket, and procures a slim, yet heavy-looking key, bronze from how it caught the light. He opens the door of the building they’re nearly squashed against in the winding streets, and gives a quiet sigh not quite befitting how he’s been inconvenienced. “Hallo, I am Caleb Widogast. Come inside, I can make tea. Why were you running? Don’t answer that.” 

Beau feels her feet move before she can refuse, carrying her past the horseshoe strung threshold and into a cramped little house, bordered on both sides by other houses with a tiny garden she can see through the entryway. Little stones hollow in the centre line a windowsill with heavy curtains. “Um?” 

He shoos her forwards like physically pushing her is the worst thing he could do, indicating a little table with two chairs, waiting until she’s seated before he wanders— no, he doesn’t wander, there’s a strange self confidence under his skin like he wouldn’t be caught dead wandering, like every move he made had purpose. Even if in this case that purpose was to lift up a flagon of water to pour into a kettle, all also bronze, and eventually lift that to the fireplace. He’s quiet for a moment before his shoulders slump. “I am no good at reading it in your face. What tea would you like, Frau...?” 

“Beauregard. Beau. Don’t call me that. Uh, green? With mint?” It’s like she’s getting her hopes up, and fuck, this is weird. He— Caleb nods, finds a little wooden box with precision, throws a measure of leaves in the water and replaces the box. And he drops to his knees in front of the hearth, holding kindling between thumb and forefinger before switching to both hands with a stick of quartz and a slim rod of steel. It takes him a few minutes to get a fire going, but it’s weirdly practiced, and he’s patient about it. 

Caleb stands, lifts the kettle into the fire, and gives a very quiet hum. “I will return in no longer than four minutes and forty five.” 

And if Beau cranes her head back she can see that he disappears very quickly to fetch a pan and brush, ducking out that same warded doorway and holding it open with a foot so he can scoop up broken glass and preserves. He returns, shutting the door and setting the pan down very obviously among the extremely ordered clutter in the rest of the house. 

“You’re not a wizard, are you?”

Caleb gives a laugh, touched with a weird measure of something guarded but mostly wrapped up in unexpected amusement. “Nein, no. I am not.”

“But you— sea salt and antimony?” She jabs back, nearly too surprised to let the hardness of her voice show through. 

“Sea salt and antimony. You don’t need components to cast things.” 

It throws Beau for a loop as he stands and shuffled over to pour tea. There’s enough water in the kettle for a small army, and Beau’s unsure of a lot, but primarily how many people he’s going to pour for. He’s automatic in picking up four glazed cups in a red ceramic, faltering in pouring out the fourth before settling on doing so. Two go on the table, one meant for Beauregard, one goes on the windowsill overlooking the garden (neatly sequestered into a sprawling and slightly overgrown lawn, and a few individual plots fenced off for labelled gardens) and one’s set down on the countertop without a word. 

Caleb ends up sat in the chair across from Beau, and she curls her hand around the cup. “Hey, what the fuck? Sorry. I. You see a woman parkour-ing her way across the city and she breaks your shit and you invite me— her— fuck, whatever, into your house?”

“I don’t tend to ask questions. You were running from something and I try to be polite. Leave when you would like to, I am not keeping you here.” 

That’ll do. “Okay. Alright. Yeah, I guess, why not. You’re not a wizard. But you’re familiar with magic. Rich enough for tea. You fuck around with fae or something?” 

Caleb’s eyes flick to the bullaun stones on the windowsill, the tea he left out where steam curled up from the empty cup, and he resists glancing at the horseshoe behind him. His fingers brush against the bronze key, and he sniffs. “I am a witch. I leave offerings as I was taught, but that is neither here nor there. I am definitely not rich, I grow tea.”

Beau stops herself from asking how in this fucking climate, because the look on Caleb’s face is very indicative of the fact that he doesn’t need a hat to remind her he is a witch. He looked nearly offended to be thought of as a wizard, which Beau thinks is probably fair. He probably casts spells as frequently as wizards, though.

Something doesn’t add up there, with the pan and brush, but it’s close enough. 

She opens her mouth to speak, and there’s a quiet hissing, a faint susurration that’s hard to place until she sees the horseshoe just past Caleb’s ear twitch before a presence pushes past the threshold. Caleb doesn't even turn to look. 

She’s short, easily 150cm, dark hair (cut choppy and maybe unintentionally) springing free to half hide her face when she tosses her hood back. She’s fat, and birthmarks show through dark against brown skin in the dim light. Her face is scarred, running threadlike and pale over her cheeks and forehead— noticeably, one curves at a normal to her lips, showing a sliver of teeth when she smiles, and along her jawline where her jawbone approaches a hinge, it’s like there’s a little chunk taken out of her, gouged by something clawlike. 

“Guten Abend, Elfenstaub,” Caleb supplies mildly, and she grins. 

The woman sets down a stone in Caleb’s hand, a little divot in its centre. She practically buzzes with pride as she turns to Caleb, dark eyes turned gold in the glint of light they catch— tapetum lucidium, Beau’s mind supplies. Which is fucking concerning. 

“Süsse,” he warns, turning the stone over in his hands. 

“I know, I know! ‘All dirt is grave dirt, not all stones are bullaun stones.’ It’s a real one. I can feel it.”

“Mm. You’re right. Danke.” And it disappears into a pocket. The two look up to Beau as though she’s done something to alert them of her presence; the woman’s eyes narrow, and Caleb attempts something close to a smile. “This one is,” a little glance, “Nott. Nott, this is Beauregard. Bear in mind that I do not want a reputation for myself.” 

Nott steps forward to glance over Beau, eyes catching on her cup— there’s a quick patter of feet as she grabs the cup on the counter. It reminds both Beau and Caleb to drink theirs, Beau’s eyebrows dance up her forehead like she’s taken up semaphore because it’s good tea, great tea. And it’s not what she expected. Caleb’s eyebrows furrow as he tries not to wince around the flavour, and Nott openly sticks her tongue out at it. 

“Caleb, that’s gross. Okay, so she’s not all posh or anything. It’s nice to see you making some friends,” she turns to Beau again, wearing that same grin. 

“Fich dich.” Cuts in Caleb, very mildly. It’s like he’s interrupted Nott’s train of thought for a second. 

“Yeah, yeah. Now. You be nice to my boy. Wizards are… eh, you’re alright as far as they go. But I’ve got my eye on you.” Behind her, Caleb rolls his eyes. 

Even as she says that she pushes her cup towards Beau, which she drains without thinking about it. Not that that would have changed her mind on it, because she doesn’t want to act polite without a very good reason for it. She empties her original cup, and sets both of them down on the table almost uncertainly. 

“I think I should probably go, so that I don’t get you guys in trouble? Can I get you new jam or something?” 

“What happened to Caduceus’ jam?”

There had been an edge to Nott’s voice, it seemed, because Caleb is quick to the draw. “I dropped it. I’ll compost it later, do not worry. I’ll get more from him, it just might take some parsley.”

Beau can’t question it. Like, what the fuck, how does that make sense, but also she’s on thin ice, and she doesn’t want to get kicked out today, not a second time. So her brow furrows but she ignores it, and stands up. “So. Yeah. Bye? Nice to meet you?” 

“Bye,” Caleb mimics, while Nott does her best go at a Zemnian accent and a “bis später,” that draws a quiet laugh out of Caleb. 

Beau hears them move on to vague talk she can’t altogether make out-

(“We’re composting the tea?” — “Ja, we are composting the tea,” — “Good! Get more jam! Jester’s going to be angry at you even if Caduceus isn’t! Make better friends!” — “I know, you two are the worst for keeping me sane. I don’t know that Beauregard and I are friends, I just did the polite thing to do. It is not likely to happen again.” — “What! Do you know where she lives?!” — “... Nein.” — “Caleb!”)

-and moves on forward out of the house. The horseshoe’s back to normal and it’s a sign of some kind probably, she just doesn’t want to know what kind, thank you very much. 

She avoids Dairon and Zeenoth like the plague has come to town back in the Hall, and to her credit is kept only vaguely confused about witches and tiny squashed homes for the rest of the day. There’s a disproportionate amount of reading she still has to do and still isn’t used to, and if her head is a little foggy then it’s her own damn fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather unsubtly, I’m meowsbian on tumblr. Hit me up, etc, etc.


End file.
